1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and system for transmission-based billing and, in particular, to methods and systems for billing the use of wireless and wired applications based upon data transmitted over a network.
2. Background Information
Today, wireless devices have become prolific in many communities of the world. Devices such as wireless phones, handsets, personal information managers, electronic organizers, personal digital assistants, portable e-mail machines, game machines, and other devices are used by subscribers of telephone carriers to add convenience to our lives. However, the software used on such devices and the mechanisms for deploying and billing for the use such software to these devices are arcane. Typically, applications or other services are billing when they are loaded onto a wireless device (a one-time, flat fee charge); on a subscription basis, such as a charge for the overall use of a set of applications and services; or for total airtime. In newer, third generation, wireless networks, such as GPRs, carriers are able to identify a total number of physical packets or the amount of data used by a device. Thus, billing models for a typical network carrier reflect flat fee or subscription-based billing and do not necessarily accurately reflect use of applications and services. For example, wireless applications that access a network while running on the device, for example a calendar, a browser, or an email client, typically utilize different carrier resources than applications that do not access a network, for example, a calculator or a text editor. A carrier or content provider is unable to accurately charge for the amount of carrier resources a particular application consumes because current billing systems provided at the wireless carrier level are unable to provide differentiated billing on an application level, except at the time of download.